Discussions Interface Overview

To access the Discussions, you can click the Home Tab on the top menu header of the AdvocateHub from Advocate view. The homepage is where users can access challenges as well as discussions topics.

From the Admin view, you can also access the Discussions by clicking the "View" button under Discussions Tab.

Let's go through each button and tabs in this page and their functionality:

1. Search Icon

This icon is where you can search for specific discussions topics. There will be a drop-down showing topics options that match the search query. If you hit enter after you type in the query or click on Option , the advanced search page will appear. Using the advanced search, you can filter the specific criteria to find the exact topic that you're looking for.

It can show the following results:

• Discussion titles with the term you're searching
• Discussion topics with the term you're searching
• Discussion posts with the term you're searching

2. All Categories

Clicking on all categories will show a dropdown of all the available forum categories and the number of topics in that category so you can quickly head over to the category that you're looking for.

3. Latest and Top Tabs

• Latest Tab = Includes the topics with the most recent posts/replies.
• Top Tab = This tab includes the most active topics in the last year, month week, or day.

New Topics, Unread Posts, and Replies

If a new topic is created while a user is on the Discussions tab, they'll see that a new or updated topic is available for them to view. See below for an example.

If the user is not on the Discussions tab, when they log in and click to Discussions, new topics will have the "New Topic" tag beside the title of the topic.

Any unread posts or unread replies will cause the title of the topic to be bolded, like the ones in the images above. If a user replies to another user's reply, then a notification will be sent as well.  See below for examples on new topic replies:

4. Categories

This page will show you all the available Categories along with the number of topics present in the Category.

5. Sorting Discussion Posts

You can sort discussion posts in the following ways, ascending or descending:

• Replies - By number
• Views - By number
• Latest Reply - By most recent replies

To sort, click the title of the column you want to sort by (see below), then click it again to change the sort order from ascending to descending.

6. Discussion Topic Timeline

When you click a discussion topic, on the right-hand side, you'll see a timeline that starts at the date the discussion was first posted and ends on the date of the last reply (see below). You can scroll through the timeline to easily find comments from certain dates. The timeline will save your position in the discussion and bring you back there the next time you visit that post !

Additionally, there is a new back to top button that sends you directly to the top of the thread. See the arrow icon at the bottom of the timeline slider.